Til the End of Summer
by redcandle
Summary: Ellaria Sand becomes involved with Prince Oberyn Martell at the great tourney at Harrenhal.


It was the end of winter, with weather so mild, men deemed it spring. They met on the road to Harrenhal, she travelling with her trueborn cousins, and he, with a retinue that befitted a prince of Dorne. "We are all Dornishmen," he said, with an easy smile, "Let us travel together."

He bedded her cousin Ricasso that night, and the next night he bedded her. He bedded another of her cousins the following night, and when he invited both her and Ricasso to his bed their fourth night on the road together, she gladly went. Ellaria did not believe in hoarding love like gold.

She never expected anything to come of their dalliance, though. They enjoyed each other's company in bed, and out of it, and that was enough. He was a dashing, unmarried prince, and good brother to the Crown Prince himself. Women from all over the Seven Kingdoms would vie for his attention at Lord Whent's great tourney. There was no reason to think he would seek her company again.

However, the day after their arrival at Harrenhal, he summoned the Uller party to be introduced to his sister the Princess Elia. Ellaria did not make much of it. He had traveled with them for a fortnight and enjoyed their company, perhaps he felt obliged to honor them.

She and her cousins made camp outside the castle walls, their tent just one among hundreds in a vast field of silk and canvas. Harrenhal was huge beyond belief, but thousands had come for the tourney and accommodations within the castle were only to be had for the royals and the great lords.

Ellaria had little thought to spare for Oberyn those first few days. There were savage-looking men from the North, perfumed dandies from the Reach, dainty ladies from the Vale, and even a few Ironborn sailors. And those were just the nobles. There were also gold-smiths from the west, fur traders from the north, booksellers from Oldtown, and bakers from King's Landing, all come to sell their wares to the largest assembly of lords and ladies ever seen in peacetime.

"They will sing of this," she said to Ricasso, taking in the juggling troupe performing a few yards away from a lute-player and his dancing bear.

He was more interested in an armorer selling slender blades of the kind favored in Braavos. At least until Ellaria caught sight of a woman with a large snake draped around her body. Ricasso reluctantly gave the slender sword back to the armorer and ran after her.

"Ellaria!"

Ellaria waited for him to catch up. Ricasso had appointed himself her shield for the duration of this tourney, and with good reason. She'd seen the way the look in men's eyes changed when they learned she was Ellaria Sand, not Ellaria Uller.

The snake handler turned out to be a fellow Dornishwoman. The snake, however, was from even further south, from the Summer Isles. It was at least twenty five feet long and as thick around as her wrist. Ellaria felt compelled to touch him.

A northern lady watching from a safe distance gasped when Ellaria petted the snake. Ellaria felt a wicked impulse - and Ellaria usually enjoyed the results of following her wicked impulses - so she drew the snake's head close and lightly kissed his forked tongue.

Several men gasped this time. Ellaria flashed them an innocent smile, and linking her arm with her cousin's, strolled away casually.

She was in even higher spirits by the time they reached their tent. After weeks of eating bland northern food, they'd found a food stall selling hot Dornish peppers, and she and Ricasso had goaded each other into eating whole peppers. Her tongue still burned, but she liked the sensation.

"We have an invitation to dine with Prince Oberyn," her cousin Cedra announced. She was smirking. "You have an admirer, Ellaria."

Ellaria read the invitation. "We're all invited," she pointed out.

Cedra's smirk grew wider. "But he was so disappointed you weren't here."

"Prince Oberyn came here?!"

"He did." The knowing look left Cedra's face, turning her smile into a honest grin. "Think of it," she said to Ricasso, "Our Ellaria might become a prince's paramour."

She did not say Ellaria might become the prince's wife. They all knew better than that. Dorne looked more kindly on matters of the heart - and the loins - than did the rest of the realm, but even in Dorne a prince could not marry a bastard. If Ellaria wished to marry, her father could find a knight to wed her. With a generous dowry, she could even wed a lord. But a prince would forever be beyond her matrimonial reach.

It ached a little knowing that she could never even hope to be Oberyn's princess. But mostly Ellaria was flattered by his attention. A love affair, with a prince, no less, would be just the thing to make this tourney even grander.

She had thought that she was being invited to an intimate dinner, yet when Ellaria and her cousins arrived at the suite of rooms within the castle that had been given to Oberyn, she discovered that the prince had invited practically every Dornish lord, lady, and knight.

"To give my sister a taste of home," he told her quietly. He'd seated her beside him, a fact that Ellaria knew would be noted. Tongues would wag.

If Princess Elia thought there was anything scandalous about Ellaria's presence at her brother's side, she gave no indication. She and her lady-in-waiting, the famous beauty Ashara Dayne, were seated across from them, and the two were nothing but gracious to Ellaria.

Ellaria was the furthest thing from shy, but she could not be comfortable in such exalted company. The other women were Dornish, yes, but Elia was wed to Rhaegar Targaryen, and she and Ashara lived in King's Landing as part of the royal court. Ellaria was very careful not to say anything that could offer offense, which resulted in her saying very little at all.

She was relieved when the meal and the entertainment was over. She'd meant to flee to less lofty company, but then Oberyn asked her to take a walk with him.

"I apologize for my selfishness, my lady," he said.

"Oh?" she said, wondering how he had been selfish and what it had to do with her.

"You see, I'm using you as a shield against marriage-minded maidens and their ambitious lord fathers."

"Ah." He was an unmarried prince of marriageable age, making him very attractive to highborn women, and he was brother to the wife of the next king, making him even more attractive to their fathers. But when word spread that he had brought his base-born lover with him, he would look rather less attractive.

She should be offended at being used so, but Ellaria found that she did not care. Impulsively, she ripped off one of the scraps of crimson chiffon that decorated her sleeves. "Then you'd best carry my favor to complete the ruse."

"Thank you."

She knew he was not thanking her for the bit of cloth. "If you want to thank me properly, my lord, then let me tell you that when I am old I would love to reminisce about fucking a prince in the greatest of castles."

"I would never deny a lady," he said, and true to his word, he took her back to his bed chamber, where together they created a memory she'd savor forever.

Years later, Ellaria would sometimes wonder if their liaison would have lasted beyond Harrenhal if not for Rhaegar Targaryen. Every child in Westeros knew the story of the great tourney held in the year of the false spring and how Prince Rhaegar had ridden pass his wife to crown Lyanna Stark the queen of love and beauty. A romantic tale it was, for those who overlooked Elia Martell and the pain and humiliation she'd suffered.

How Oberyn had raged. They had had to physically restrain him to keep him from challenging Rhaegar to a duel, for Mad King Aerys would have seen such a challenge not as a brother's attempt to avenge an insult to his sister's honor, but as treason against royal blood. In the end, only Elia's pleas and the promise she managed to wrought from him had stayed Oberyn's hand.

"I need to leave," he'd told Ellaria. "I cannot stay here and do nothing."

"Then we'll go." There was no question that she would leave with him. She was afraid of what he might do and she thought it best that she go with him and keep him from endangering himself and the family he loved. "I've always wanted to see Braavos."

They left Harrenhal that very night and spent the next year touring the Free Cities. When word came of the war brewing in Westeros, they'd taken the first ship back. But by the time they reached Sunspear, it was too late. Elia was dead, raped and murdered by a knight sworn to Lord Tywin Lannister, who'd laid the bodies of her children before Robert Baratheon, their new king.

Doran Martell, Oberyn's older brother and the ruling Prince of Dorne, had been forced to imprison Oberyn until he could be reasoned with. Dorne would be destroyed if they went to war against the other Seven Kingdoms, he'd explained to Ellaria. "Help me," he'd begged her.

Ellaria had ruthlessly used the babe growing within her against Oberyn. When he declared that he was willing to die for his sister, she demanded to know why he could not live for his child instead. Somehow, between them, she and Doran managed to convince him to be patient.

But at last the time had come when he did not have to be patient any longer. The time for vengeance had come. Ellaria did not know the details, and she did not want to know, but she knew alliances were being made to strengthen Dorne and remove the Lannisters and Baratheons from power.

"There is no depth to which they will not sink," Oberyn told her. "I do not think they'll do anything overtly hostile while the girl Myrcella is here in Dorne, but I do not trust them. You should stay here with our daughters..."

"Our daughters will be safest here," she agreed. "But I am going with you, love." The long summer was drawing to an end, and the coming cold filled her with a sense of foreboding dread. She embraced him and nipped his ear. "Blondes are plentiful north, and I've always wanted to fuck a golden-haired woman."

They were husband and wife in all but name, and they knew each other well. He knew of her fear, and she knew better than to urge caution. "I will have revenge for Elia, and we will have an adventure." His hands moved over her body, turning their embrace erotic. "We shall make such mischief in King's Landing."

Ellaria prayed it would be so.


End file.
